Biking!!!

There are some days where I really love my body. Today was one of them!

Today I went biking for the first time in two years. And instead of doing a short ride, I did a long one, riding to the other end of town to pick up a vehicle. When I first started, I thought I was going to die; to start I had to go up a hill and I felt like I was going to have a hard time breathing. But once I got to the top it was pretty smooth sailing (thankfully the rest of the ride was mostly down hill!)

To make things even better, my glucose stayed relatively stable. I used my cross country skiing strategy and it worked perfectly! And this was after being low earlier in the evening (about two hours before riding).

I doubt I would've been able to bike back home because I was starting to feel sore in my legs and abs by the end of the ride. But successfully making it through a 45 minute bike ride after being off my bike for two years is still really awesome! I'm guessing I'll be a bit sore tomorrow, but that's totally worth it after my success today!!! :)

I'm hoping to get back out on my bike relatively soonish (maybe I'll be able to squeeze in a shorter ride on Saturday night? Otherwise it'll have to wait until next week). Wish me luck! ;)

Weight Updates for July 18 and 28 2016

I just made an interesting observation over the last few weeks.  Here are my numbers from July 18th, which was a few days before my period:

weight: 206.0 lbs
fat percentage: 44.1%
hydration: 38.4%
muscle: 27.5%
bone: 10.8%
cal: 2323

And here they are from earlier today, which was right after my period:

weight: 209.8 lbs
fat percentage: 45.4%
hydration: 37.5%
muscle: 26.9%
bone: 10.7%
cal: 2344

I think I've been giving into cravings during my period.

I know my period is heavy, which makes me feel like crap.  I think because of that, if I feel like eating a bit of extra whatever, I've been giving into it.  I'm going to try recording what I eat during my next period and see what happens.

Over the last week or two I've been walking a lot.  So I really wasn't expecting this weight gain.  But at the same time, I've been having some trouble with keeping my glucose levels on target.  One night I went for a huge walk and never ended up low, which struck me as super odd.  So I think things are a bit off in general right now.  But I'm going to see my diabetes nurse in a few weeks.  So hopefully she'll be able to help me get this stuff back under control if I'm not able to deal with it myself!

Testing etc

I've been thinking about doing some basal tests for awhile now but kept putting things off.  To be fair, with the new job and all the stress before getting it, I wanted to wait until life calmed down a bit to get a better picture of what is going on.  But now I have an appointment with my diabetes nurse and dietitian at the end of the month, so it was definitely time to start doing some of those tests!

I also decided to do a pump download.  I haven't actually done one here since February. Oops!  As a side note though, I seem to be doing a bit better than I was in February right now (more of my glucose tests were in target!)

I actually did manage to run a basal test successfully last night.  Well, mostly successfully; I failed to wake up during my 7:30am alarm (I woke up at 6 thinking it had gone off and did glucose, but then didn't wake back up until 10am).  But other than that snag, the test was successful for the night.  Unexpectedly though I ran rather high all night; things started out fine, but then my glucose went up to 11 mmol/L and sort of stayed there.  So it looks like I will have to make an adjustment with that.  My one concern is that I'm getting close to my period, which may be messing with things.  My period is still about a week away though, so I think it should be fine.  I did just send an email to my diabetes education team though to get their thoughts on the matter; we'll see what they say.

I've also spent two days keeping track of what I'm eating on a carbohydrate counting daily worksheet.  I have to say I'm not really a fan of the sheets because of their layout, but whatever; if it's what my dietitian wants then so be it.  I ended up making a switch on my insulin to carbohydrate ratio already thanks to these sheets though - it looks like the insulin to carb was too high at 9pm, but fine at 10pm.  Hopefully I'll be able to tell in the next few days if the switch helped or not.

While I'm writing, I might as well give my numbers from July 12th:

weight: 207.4 lbs
fat percentage: 46.3%
hydration: 36.9%
muscle: 26.5%
bone: 10.7%
cal: 2331

So a bit better with the weight than last time, but it's all super close so really not much difference.

Weight Update July 7 2016

I seem to have missed writing stuff down here for the last few weeks.  But I did keep track of my weight!  Here are the June 20th numbers:

weight: 208.8 lbs
fat percentage: 45.1%
hydration: 37.7%
muscle: 27.0%
bone: 10.7%
cal: 2338

The June 29th numbers:

weight: 208.8 lbs
fat percentage: 45.8%
hydration: 37.2%
muscle: 26.7%
bone: 10.8%
cal: 2338

And the July 7th numbers:

weight: 208.0 lbs
fat percentage: 46.4%
hydration: 36.8%
muscle: 26.4%
bone: 10.7%
cal: 2334

I've been feeling a bit bummed out all day because my weight has gone up to 208 lbs and stayed there (although it actually has come down almost a pound during this last week, so that's good).  I've walked a lot in the last few weeks and was hoping to see more of a change than that though.  I'm not really sure what exactly I'm doing wrong and it's frustrating!!!

But at least my BMI is not back up to the obese range (it almost is though!) :(

I have not managed to do the bit of yoga every day.  I seem to have totally forgotten about it.  I also feel super stressed out by life right now, so yoga would honestly be a good thing.  I think I'm going to try to fit in a bigger workout one night a week (so like 30-40 minutes) and go from there, maybe adding in a second night in a few weeks if that is successful.  Then I won't have to worry about remembering something else in my day.

I think I'm also going to keep track of my food for the next week or so.  I have an appointment with my diabetes educators at the end of the month and wanted to run some basal tests in the next week anyway, so bringing a food log would be a good idea, too.  I don't feel like I've been eating badly lately, but something is going on and I need to see for sure.  Of course, it's possible that I've got a bit more muscle which accounts for the weight (but that doesn't seem super likely to me right now, at least according to my numbers).  So let's see exactly what's going on for the next week and go from there!